Famous Barb Poems by Famous Poets

 BOOK I

 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as...Read More

 "Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we never loved so blindly, 
Never met or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns 


TO 
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD...Read More

 I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here...Read More

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. 

Daddy, I...Read More

 A Fragment of a Turkish Tale

The tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are...Read More

 The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the...Read More

 "Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we never loved so blindly, 
Never met or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns 


TO 
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD...Read More

 SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with...Read More

OUR band is few but true and tried  
Our leader frank and bold; 
The British soldier trembles 
When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good greenwood 5...Read More

MY faint spirit was sitting in the light 
Of thy looks my love; 
It panted for thee like the hind at noon 
For the brooks my love. 
Thy barb whose...Read More

 I

Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run...Read More

 Christ of His gentleness 
Thirsting and hungering, 
Walked in the wilderness; 
Soft words of grace He spoke 
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering. 
He heard the bitterns call 
From ruined...Read More

 MY faint spirit was sitting in the light 
 Of thy looks, my love; 
 It panted for thee like the hind at noon 
 For the brooks, my...Read More

 At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim,
When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've got to do it, Jim.
We've got to make Fort Liard...Read More

 Sir, 
Our times are much degenerate from those 
Which your sweet muse with your fair fortune chose, 
And as complexions alter with the climes, 
Our wits have drawn the...Read More

 Me that 'ave been what I've been --
 Me that 'ave gone where I've gone --
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen --
 'Ow can I ever take on
With...Read More

 Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her...Read More

 My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize, 
where I...Read More

 (Made Yeomanry towards End of Boer War)
Only two African kopjes,
 Only the cart-tracks that wind
Empty and open between 'em,
 Only the Transvaal behind;
Only an Aldershot column
 Marching to conquer...Read More

 (Non-commissioned Officers in Charge of Prisoners)
When by the labor of my 'ands
 I've 'elped to pack a transport tight 
With prisoners for foreign lands, 
 I ain't transported with...Read More

 Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain.
Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain
The presences that now together throng
Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song,
As with...Read More